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| Ousted former Korean President Park Geun-hye enters Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, Thursday morning, to face a court hearing over 13 charges including bribery, coercion, abuse of power and the leaking of state secrets. / Yonhap |
By Ko Dong-hwan
Ousted former Korean President Park Geun-hye entered Seoul Central District Court Thursday morning for a review of the prosecutor's arrest warrant for her filed three days ago.
She headed straight to the court without calling at the prosecutors' office, unlike her aides involved in the presidential corruption scandal, including former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon and former culture minister Cho Yoon-sun, and vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Lee Jae-yong.
As the case unfolded, questions about how the unmarried woman facing 13 criminal charges will be treated during and after the hearing arose. These included how far her bodyguards can accompany her in the court, where she will be incarcerated after the hearing and what will happen to her following the review's result.
While media access to the court was blocked, most experts guessed Park will not be accompanied by her bodyguards during the hearing at West Building court No. 321. Bodyguards were not allowed to stay by her side during questioning at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office last week.
The hearing is expected to last nearly eight hours because Park denied all allegations during prosecutors' questioning. Judge Kang Bu-young is leading the hearing that will review the warrant's validity by referring to documents mounting to 120,000 pages in over 220 books.
After the hearing and while the court makes its decision, Park is likely to be kept at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, only a few hundred meters from the court in Seocho-gu, southern Seoul. Insiders from the office said the location is the strongest reason to rule out Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, or a Seoul Seocho Police Station cell. The proximity also adds to more effective security for Park.
The Criminal Procedure Code mandates that after a hearing, suspects in general are to be incarcerated where the court chooses.
If the court decides to accept the arrest warrant, prosecutors will take Park to a correctional facility where she will change into a prison uniform.
"If the court acknowledges Park's charges on accepting bribery and other allegations, the penalty could be at least 10 years in prison or life in prison," Jung Chung-rae, a member of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), tweeted Mar. 27. The outspoken lawmaker has almost 280,000 followers.
"(Former presidents) Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, with the same charge, were dealt life in prison and 17 years in prison respectively," he said. "All is fair in front of the law. Court justice must be enforced."
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